


Fuel

by orphan_account



Series: A Victorian Soulmate AU [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Bonding but it's Victorian, Francis is a Nerd, M/M, Mentions of Victorian Dinosaurs, Softness all around, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Thomas ships it, Wanton use of historical trivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22955782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It was a hot, bright day. The heat hovered mid-air, thick with pollen; it buzzed with the armadas of bees and dragonflies darting to and fro in the bushes. James could feel a trickle of sweat roll down the back of his neck, damping the back of his shirt. He briefly cursed the weather. He briefly cursed the disgraceful lack of judgment which brought him out in this weather.James leaned over the railing, staring at the yellow eyes of the monsters crawling in the underbrush, and mused he really had no idea where his lover was.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: A Victorian Soulmate AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649671
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	Fuel

**Author's Note:**

> A vignette from my Soulmate AU - involving ugly Victorian dinosaurs, Francis being a science nerd, James being utterly in love, and Blanky sassing them both. And eating cakes.

It was a hot, bright day. The heat hovered mid-air, thick with pollen; it buzzed with the armadas of bees and dragonflies darting to and fro in the bushes. James could feel a trickle of sweat roll down the back of his neck, damping the back of his shirt. He briefly cursed the weather. He briefly cursed the disgraceful lack of judgment which brought him out in this weather. 

James leaned over the railing, staring at the yellow eyes of the monsters crawling in the underbrush, and mused he really had no idea where his lover was. 

The scenario was less alarming than his previous experiences – especially those revolving around frost-coated coasts and trapped ships and the terror of ungodly beasts chasing his loved ones – could have suggested. It certainly helped that they were not in some cursed uncharted spot of the map, but in the south-east of London – at the comfortable, if damp, heart of their Queen's kingdom. It also helped that, by now, he was in no way new to the experience. 

It was the fourth time James found himself on the same elbow of the same gravel path, staring at the same tapestry of green and rich brown of the garden, and the same scaled creatures paddling at its bottom. The shine had, so to speak, dimmed a bit by now. At least for James. Not for the man James was here with, clearly. Francis had disappeared with a rushed apology several minutes earlier – leaving his soulmate and his best friend bearing the brunt of their boredom together and making gentle fun of him. 

The Dinosaur Park, crowded with its strange over-size lizards around the jewel-shine of the Crystal Palace, had mostly taught James that he was still more a man of letters than of science; and that if in those staggeringly distant times Britain was indeed tramped around by the creatures Londoners were gawking at, he was pretty grateful to have been born to the nineteenth century. 

Nineteenth century certainly sounded less dull a time to live, though James had not had the heart to tell Francis that particular thought. Not that he found these dinosaurs particularly hideous – mostly, the poor sods looked just hungry and ungainly. 

'Toothy, awkward, and stocky – no wonder I feel such kinship with those things', Francis told him the night he came back with Sir Owen's brand-new book on prehistoric anatomy: holding the engraving of a madness of fangs and lumpy scales beside his face so he could judge the resemblance by himself. 

James had half-heartedly chucked his copy of _Bleak House_ at Francis’s head, told him to stop with that nonsense. But still, after their first dutiful visit to the Park, James had had no intention to call on Francis's reptilian friends again anytime soon. They had a busy social season before them: he had ideaa. Plans. He wouldn't impose on Francis, nor push him out of the comfort of his reserve, but he still wanted to parade him around a bit; show him the innocuous delight to be found in such things, the pleasure of dancing and gossiping and merry-making in the gilded silliness of that world. Now, now especially: now that he walked into ballrooms with Francis at his side, finally filling his dress uniform again; now that he could spy the small, shocked smile on his face when Admirals nodded their heads to him in greeting. The hand lightly grasping for James’s elbow, reaching for him the way a sailor would do with the sturdy rigging of his boat: after all, after everything, this is the one delight James will never deny himself again. 

Yes, James thought no one would reproach him for that. No one would rebuke him for yearning for other kinds of entertainment, especially after the _third_ afternoon spent at the Park. His conscience was quite immaculate, thank you very much. 

Then, it happened the one thing James Fitzjames had been afraid of, and which made him instantly ready to throw out of the window every social plan and kernel of firmness in his body. 

Francis asked him to. 

Francis Crozier, the man with whom he shares one blue eye he acquired after the glorious golden bond between them snapped into place. The man who decided to tie him to his heart as James lay on his deathbed, knowing death does not concern itself with such human things as love and yearning, and that it could have decided to drag them both into the void, even if in the end it hadn’t. The man he begged to leave, to let him go so he would live on, because James could bear the thought of Francis being the last thing he would see of the world, but not the other way around. 

So, when he asked, James said yes. He said yes before Francis's lovely eyes could even begin to darken with doubt, before he could even start humming with the worry he was being inept or ridiculous. James sprang out of his chair, and mentally crumpled the program of the Covent Garden Theatre, and said that why, of course he would love to visit the Park again, Francis. So intellectually challenging. So educational. 

_So tragically boring._

"Well, here you are," Blanky commented from James’s left side, in the jostling of crinolines and top hats of the afternoon crowd. "Visiting these things for the fourth time since they opened them to the public. You know what this means, James." 

James rolled his eyes. "Thomas-" 

"One pound, Captain. I won fair and square." 

James let out a groan. Then dug one hand into his breastpocket, the fob slapping against his chest, and pulled out the single shining pound he had already prepared for that precise purpose that morning. (Never a man to accept defeat less than graciously, James Fitzjames.) He dropped the coin in Blanky's waiting hand. 

Thomas, with the seer's certainty of a true ice master, had prognosticated James's resolution not to set foot inside the Park again would last exactly as long as it would take Francis to flutter his lashes and look marginally mournful about it. 

James had been foolish enough to make a bet out of it. 

"Many thanks,” Blanky said jovially. “You think we'll ever see him again?" 

James tilted his head to the side: unfolding himself out of his body, prodding with that sense which was not sight and not smell and not hearing and a bit of all of them, and which stretched between him and Francis in the space under their skin. He felt it tremble, twinge - direct him to a brilliance. Steady, safe. Nearby. 

"I think he's still within the confines of the Park," he said. "And the gates close at five in any case.” 

“Uh-uh.” 

“He's bound to come out by then, at the latest." 

"Uh-uh. Is he, though?" 

Blanky was enjoying his discomfort way too much for James's taste. 

"Ah - there! I think I see him now." James pointed at a grassy nook in the path a hundred feet from them: a flake of gray, originally a pleasant charcoal and dimmed by time to the unlovely yellow-gray of London fogs, was bobbing animatedly in the middle of a cluster of sleek black top hats. James only knew one person who would suffer being seen in such battered headwear. "He's just talking with those gentlemen, there, beside the Iguanodon. I think they are from the Royal Society as well - perhaps that Owen person's acolytes." 

"Mh. You see much arterial blood flowing yet?" 

"Surprisingly, no," James says softly. "I think they are. I think they are listening to him." 

All of a sudden, Francis's laugh rang out – head thrown back, teeth flashing. It rippled down James's spine like light. 

"Well, it was about time they did," Thomas mumbled into his paper cone of plum duffs. Out of the corner of his eye, James caught the red-hot line of Blanky's dark gaze pinned on his friend, scanning the young academic things around him like he'd do with a pistol trained on each of them, ready to shoot if the need arose. He felt a fierce pulse of gratitude, for the man who appreciated Francis before he and the rest of the world even started contemplating the possibility of him being something to appreciate 

They sank back into comfortable silence: Blanky munching steadily through his snacks, James mentally calculating the odds of still being able to catch a show after Francis got inevitably kicked out of the park premises. He lazily kept an eye on the moving river of the promenade, with Francis a thud of light in the back of his head. He nodded at friends, agreeable acquaintances, and important if less agreeable acquaintances. James Ross, grayer in the hair than he remembered, his flutter of children trailing like dolphins after a ship. An impression of Sophia - the straight line of the shoulders, the glimpse of a face under the shadow of the bonnet; soft lips, bright with intelligence. He tilted in a half-bow when he caught her eyes; exchanged a small trembling smile when she initiated it. (Sophia Cracroft too is a most gracious loser.) 

"What on earth is he doing now?" Blanky asked suddenly: sounding more pleasantly puzzled than any real shade of concerned. 

"I think he is – vaulting over the fence to take a closer look at the dinosaurs." James held his breath for the five seconds it took Francis to scramble, inelegantly but effectively, past the iron railing, disappearing in the bushy tangle surrounding the prehistoric uglies. Then he saw him safely popping up at the bottom of the slope, a hum of contentment traveling goldly down their bond, and thought himself allowed to stop holding his breath for incoming tragedy. 

"Oh, dear." 

"I hope no one is going to call the coppers on him," Blanky said. He was trying to hide his grin behind one of his cakes, and failing horribly. 

"I do no think they will," James offered. The effects of Francis's stunt was starting to ripple into the crowd – a blur of turning heads, ladies hiding their giggles in the shadow of their hats. Children popped sugar crystals out of their mouths to point fingers at the 'queer man frolicking among the lizards.' 

All in good spirit, but - 

Deciding being closer to his mate was probably useless but nonetheless advisable, James took a couple of careful steps towards the railing. "We still enjoy something of a privileged status with the authorities – and I doubt anyone would seriously think _he_ means to damage the dinosaurs,” he went on. “Still, I really hope the Admiralty is not going to find out about this. That would be quite the diplomatic headache to sort out. I guess he could always claim a momentary relapse of Arctic insanity." 

"Nah,” said Thomas. “Look at him. Looks way too happy to pull that off." 

James felt the impact before understanding it: Blanky’s words registering in waves. The tone he used, too - the quiet certainty with which he had judged the ice and its cruelty back in the North. 

_Happy._

He reeled under it, discreetly. He had been following Francis's tramping around the legs of the water-dwelling monster (not a fish despite the appearance and what good sense may suggest, but a reptile: as Francis spent an evening explaining to him, Owen's lithographs tapped rhythmically under his finger, before James gave him his best impression of a water-dwelling reptile, fin-paws slipping treacherously around Francis's waist and dragging him back to their divan like it were a moss-covered monster-abode. There was much complaining about biological inaccuracy, much nibbling at ears and necks, and finally his victim quite glad of letting the sea monster devour him for the rest of the night.) He was thinking of the future state Francis's boots, too, caked in brackish mud and crushed dandelions; of the quiet little boy he must have been, back in Ireland, the kind who squats for hours in the pond in his parents' courtyard watching tadpoles before the nanny picks him by the scruff of the neck like an unruly kitten, the pure joy of that image. 

_Happy._ James felt that word tumble through him. It chimed like a finger against the rim of a cut-glass _._

Blanky picked it up: the shudder, the shuffling inside James. 

"Did I say something wrong?" he asked. Leaving James the chance to either answer truthfully or tell him to shut it, at his discretion. 

"No," James said. He shook his head; found his eyes ricochet back to Francis, now curled up beside the jaws of the beast, and apparently trying his best to get swallowed by it. "No, not at all. It's just –" 

He hesitated. This was brand new territory for James Fitzjames; this was uncharted lands. To have a man to call friend, to whom open your own uncharted maps: the tricky wastelands as well as the beautiful vistas. He brushed at his left eye, blue and different and growing more natural in his face with each passing day, as comfort, as counsel. Took his decision. 

"Thomas," he said, blurting it all out in the same rush of breath, "do you really think he's happy?" 

Thomas's eyebrows disappeared somewhere under the bush of his hair. 

"You're his soulmate, James," he said, not ungently. "If you're anything like me and the old woman, you can tell yourself better than I can ever do. Though I would bet good money that right now he's having a whale of a time." 

He was: the thread between them was currently shimmering with little sparks of enjoyment – glimpses of memories who were not James’s, mud-squelching and grass-smelling; a prickling of obscure scientific notions running as an undercurrent to Francis’s joy. James realized he was smiling only when he felt the pull in his cheeks. 

"I can confirm that," he said. "But still – I'm talking of a, a more comprehensive happiness. The state of it. And I may be his mate, Thomas, but you've been his best friend for decades. I'm not afraid of admitting you are still the greatest Crozier-master alive to this date." 

Blanky guffawed and coughed in quick succession, thumping his chest when crumbs of fried dough lodged themselves in his throat. "'Crozier-master' - oh, I love that. I love that very much. You are indeed gifted with words, I see." 

"It sounds fitting." 

"It is. Full of bergs and hard to navigate if you expect quiet warm waters – aye, can see that. Though he's not that lethal, to be honest." 

"You should have seen him when I told him I invited Mister Lestrade from the _Illustrated London News_ for an exclusive interview about the new house. I felt genuinely worried for the man's safety after he spent more than ten minutes talking of the brocade we chose for the curtains." 

Blanky snorted again; but James could see he was still thinking through his question. 

"I mean it, Thomas," he added; for good measure, for James Fitzjames had never mastered the art of not using and abusing words. "I know it's probably unfair to ask of you, and quite childish, too, but – am I making him happy? It's – I do not mean to influence your judgment, but nothing would be give me more pleasure than knowing I managed to give that to him. That I am doing a decent job at it." 

James's pulse was throbbing under his cravat. He could see Thomas’s brows furrow: his brain running calculations, memories, things even James, to whom Francis had conceded the unsurpassed privilege of unlocking his heart, would never be able to know quite as clear as the two of them did. 

He grew aware of how tensed he was only when Blanky's shoulder bumped lightly into his and he was startled into looking up at him. Thomas was not smiling, but there was another kind softness on his face. A softness of wonder. 

"James," he said, slowly and clearly, so he would be not able to convince himself he had misunderstood, "of course he is happy with you. I’ve know him since we were barely able to keep all our extremities from falling off in the cold, and I have never seen him happier than he is now. Than he is with _you_." Blanky's new wooden leg scraped against the gravel, a subtle tell of unease; more lines creasing the cragginess of his face. "There have been times. There have been times when I didn't even dare imagine I would ever get to see him happy at all." 

James swallowed. Still felt his heart echo in his throat. "Well, I suppose he has reasons to be so, now," he offered. "The Royal Society asked him to consider a university tenure. They're pestering him for a full account of the expedition – or at least a series of lectures on it. There is even talk of a knighthood, even if he keeps up that nonsense of not wanting a pretty title for having survived the ice when so many –" 

"Bollocks," Blanky said. "The breed of men Francis belongs to do not measure their happiness in fame and fortune, Captain. It is another kind of fuel that powers them. And it’s the same that keeps them warm, too." 

Someone was calling out their names: they turned in synchrony, their eyes finding the source of the voice at the same time. Their Captain; Frank, a name of privilege only Thomas and James Ross have enjoyed; Francis, rolled off the tongue against the tip of his spine on lazy Sunday mornings. The man currently giving the throng of pastel-colored passers-by a bit of a diversion, as he climbed out of a dinosaur's jaws and started climbing the slope towards them, breech-knees smeared green with mud, top hat crushed under one arm. 

"What kind of fuel is his, then?" James asked Blanky, softly. 

Francis called out his name; when James waved in greeting, he lighted up, lifting his hat arm to gesticulate at him. 

Blanky's arm reached out from beside James – his finger aiming at the shape of Francis: coming closer, smiling wide. "This is.” 

James sucked in his next breath. 

"Oh," he said. "Oh." 

"Aye, Captain. Oh." 

Francis was finally within hearing range. Scraps of his prattling were reaching them, in steady waves, following the ups and downs of his climb. He was close enough for James to see his nose, mysteriously smeared in mud almost as bad as his boots. He imagined to brush it away with his thumb; felt the thought reverberate in the private fold of space between them. 

When Francis was three steps away James half-leaped over the railing, grabbing at Francis's hand to help him up despite the smattering of cordial bystanders who had approached them with the same purpose. The tips of the railing dug most awkwardly into his stomach; he should have probably waited another five seconds before reaching out, but still felt a thrill of fierce pleasure at being him the one taking his mate's hand. It was worth the indignity of hanging there, folded in two like a felled deer. 

While shows of physical affection weren’t frowned upon between soul mates, property still dictated certain limitations: especially, perhaps, for couples who teetered on the edge of scandal most of the times. (James’s slippery past and Francis's Irish heritage still murmured about in drawing rooms, although only in those where Sophia Cracroft's lethal shadow failed to make lesser ladies quiver in fear.) James had publicly deliberated they were not to challenge the world on those rules, or not as much as they would like. He had also privately decided he wouldn't fail to take full advantage of every appropriate occasion to disobey them. 

Hauling Francis over the railing he wasn't supposed to scamper past in the first place, forgiving him for the moss which now covered James’s trousers as well as his, qualified as one of such occasions. 

Francis accepted his hand graciously, as he wouldn't have even considered to do four years ago. He hopped back on the path, talking the whole time – James grasped the words 'claws' and 'belly' and 'zoological' shot out in quick succession. 

He kept hold of him for a little longer; pretended to help him straighten his coat, tracing the line of his back with the tip of his fingers. If the look he cast over Francis’s shoulder at the couple of resourceful bystanders still milling around wasn't completely courteous, he thought he could forgive himself a minor sin. 

(James didn't think himself a territorial creature; but like those who had for the longest time carried all their belongings in a trunk and a bag of tobacco, he was acutely aware of those things he was allowed to call his own.) 

"... Skin texture," were the first words James actually made sense of in Francis’s speech. He stopped looking – _glaring_ – at the gentlemen down the path. 

"Beg your pardon, Francis?" 

"Thomas was asking me what the devil I was doing down there," Francis said, pointing at his back. It The gesture gave James the chance to notice the fern bud caught in his collar, a small green comma. "And I was telling him I wanted to examine the skin texture of the Ichthyosaurus, as those useless information panels didn't inform me about it at all. I asked Doctor Owen permission to do so, of course." 

"And he agreed to that?" Blanky asked, not bothering to stop munching on his last cake. "James told me about the squabble you and the man had after that improbable dinner-in-the-Iguanosomething night. I expected he wanted to feed you to his dinosaurs or something along those lines." 

"That wasn't my fault!” Francis said. “I just raised some reasonable, and I think legitimate, concerns about his interpretation of climate-coded evolution in Arctic fauna. The debate may have grown a tad passionate – but he had clearly given up any scheme to have me devoured by prehistoric creatures. And now, Thomas, what about that last cake you got there? You should share, you know –" 

"I should not." 

"Come on, man – I am your Captain!" 

"Always; but not when we are on dry land. You have my friendship, Frank, but you won't have my duffs." 

"Well, I am glad to see you and Doctor Owen seem to have reached an agreement," James peeped in. "And I'm glad you are enjoying yourself, as well." 

Francis, currently busy trying to glower Blanky into parting with the remaining half of his last cake, turned back to him; smiled. 

"I am," he said simply. He grew pensive, always so guarded around the matters of his own heart. "And thank you for taking me here – again. I know you must be quite sick of watching me gallivating around this park like an authentic Ancestral Man." 

"I'll never tire of that, " James said, truthfully. 

Francis chuckled at that. He leaned forward to brush at James’s arm, another flimsy excuse for a touch. He stopped halfway to it, flinching hard. James felt a spike of clean pain rush down their bond: blinking more at the shock of it than at any real discomfort. 

He frowned. "Are you hurt?" 

Francis was already shaking his head – glaring at his hand as if rebuking a particularly lazy shipboy. He plucked it out of the glove, flicking his fingers, and James finally saw there was a ridge of scraped skin across his knuckles. A trail of tiny scratching marks ran all the way to his wrist. 

James, who had barely lost hold of Francis's hand in the first place, found himself seizing it again – grip still gentle enough around the bruises not to hurt. 

"Good grief, Francis," he blurted out, "how did you –" 

"Oh, stop fretting, Fitzjames. It doesn't become you." Francis rolled his eyes. "I knew the hazards when I started trying to scramble into a concrete creature's mouth – and one equipped with impressive carnivore teeth. I don't think I'm going to drop dead out of sepsis anytime soon." 

"And funny certainly doesn't become _you_ , my dear Crozier," James snapped perfunctorily. He was still examining Francis's hand where it lay in his own. The muscles nestled under his shoulder-blades, trained by a life of ruthless gossip, hummed with the vague awareness of the people around them: the whispers, the prodding glances. James firmly told himself not to care. 

Even through the lambskin of his own glove, and after almost five years – a vertigo to think of it; the luxury of so much time together ridiculous to the two scrawny, half-dead things who pledged themselves to each other in the unmapped horror of the ice – the feeling of his soul mate's bare skin against his pulsed with _rightness._

Even when said skin closely resembled a slab of marinated meat. 

"Does it hurt?" 

"No," Francis said: not nearly as aggravated with him as he would have liked people to think. "No, it doesn't. I am _fine._ ” 

James sighed, breath rolling down the curve of Francis's wrist. He felt Francis shudder slightly at the contact. 

_Oh. Interesting._

He lifted his eyes into Francis's, slowly. Deliberately. 

"I really can't let you out of my sight for any significant period of time, can I?" 

He blew another sigh across the back of Francis's hand, as an experiment. A flash of goosebumps surfaced in its wake, and James grinned against the puckered skin. 

Francis's throat bobbed visibly under his collar. 

"You have some nerve telling me I am the one needing constant supervision." 

"I'll concede to that," James said. And then proceeded to press his mouth to Francis's knuckles – parting his lips, applying them there long enough to leave a warm imprint. The goosebumps redoubled; a breathy curse popped out of Francis. “I _am_ quite shameless, after all.” 

Blanky, now leaning against the railing, coughed out a laugh. James heard scandalized gasps chase one another at their back; felt them evaporate in the glory of this moment. (He thought the two scrawny half-dead things would have approved, too.) 

Francis managed to shove at him without forcing James to actually let go of his hand. “What do you think you are doing, mh?” 

"Soothing an ache. Being gallant and helpful.” James tilted his head to the side. “Isn't that part of my duties? As your Second, if nothing else?” 

"You're too clever for your own good, James – that’s what you are." 

James replied with a face of perfect, guileless innocence. It earned him another eye-roll. Underneath, though, he sensed that the goosebumps remained: peeking past Francis's cravat, a light pinkness crawling all the way to the shell of his ears. At the back of James’s head, the negative of a shared memory flicked to life. A man lying on a cot, drowning in the sick moisture of his own body; another man half-curled around him – whispering desperate softness in his ear, sharing all his warmth with him, all the heat still in his blood: it being just enough for them to push through the night, and the long day after it, and the drawn-out torture of recovery and crossing back to a Britain they had almost forgotten – all the way to this bright May morning, and the dinosaurs, and the armadas of dragonflies and bees. 

_A different fuel, indeed._


End file.
